It’s a bit of a meme, but this needs to be a real Second International party, not just a bunch of red-painted Populists. Synthesising Lincolnian tactics and Marxian doctrine in something similar to the Erfurt Program was the way to go in my view.
It’s a bit of a meme, but this needs to be a real Second International party, not just a bunch of red-painted Populists. Synthesising Lincolnian tactics and Marxian doctrine in something similar to the Erfurt Program was the way to go in my view."Marxist-Lincolnist," heh
oh yes, I liked tracing how you outlined each swing in the theories they adopted, the SLPA/Workingmen's/Grangerite/Greenback coalition in the 80s, then the tension between the old union leaders, the Haymarket/Homestead unionists, Sewer Socialists, and Populists in the 90s, and then DeLeonism forming a bridge to the age of Debs and the Wobblies: each move marches along left-leg-right-legIt’s a bit of a meme, but this needs to be a real Second International party, not just a bunch of red-painted Populists. Synthesising Lincolnian tactics and Marxian doctrine in something similar to the Erfurt Program was the way to go in my view.
You've hit the nail on the head there: the Socialist Party of the war era is arguably more radical than the SPD. They, after all, oppose the war from 1915 onwards.oh yes, I liked tracing how you outlined each swing in the theories they adopted, the SLPA/Workingmen's/Grangerite/Greenback coalition in the 80s, then the tension between the old union leaders, the Haymarket/Homestead unionists, Sewer Socialists, and Populists in the 90s, and then DeLeonism forming a bridge to the age of Debs and the Wobblies: each move marches along left-leg-right-leg
My view towards the anarchists was much more that they're a separate force that gets tied to the Socialists by association by the establishment. If I were to rewrite TL-191 I'd have the Republicans fully collapse, a new right-wing "Unionist" Party emerge as the party of Remembrance and government, while the Democrats go down the path of regular old Liberalism, pushed into non competitiveness by the rise of the Socialists.I got a lot of notes building up for an eventual "fix fic" and I'd say the Socialists are going to be externally shaped by Galleanist anarchists and the Democrats[1] who're now pro-German (at least when it comes to mobilization and training) and anti-Southern: so the SPA can 1. thread the needle between organized, disciplined labor militancy vs. just bomb-throwing, while also 2. facing down a revanchist, militarist Remembrance Party that by the turn of the century explicitly wants to make the country rise like a phoenix and establish the American Empire of the book title[2][3]
I think we have the same mind towards the conservative GOP: that Industrial Capital and its OTL Republican representatives are still going to be running the country, and that a GOP "rebrand" of sorts is more likely than the GOP right managing to completely take over the Dems.also Turtledove made much of Lincoln predicting any Southron revolution would be Black--presumably that they'd take the revolutionary road rather than by democratizing society
(I can also hear Flora Hamburger overhearing these considerations from the next room and yelling "it's not 'interesting,' it's dialectical!" lol)
[1] my "TL-191.1" calls this era the "National Union Party" to make it seem bigger than just "the other party," underscore its ideological revamping, to mark a break with , and as an ironic nod to the Lincoln-Johnson ticket of 1864 OTL
[2] and the NUP itself will have its own needles to thread, since 1. its ideology is that which gave us the Palmer Raids and 1914 dachshund-kickings OTL, but 2. its base will be Papist hypenated-americans, machine bosses, and homicidal mine-owners
[3] my GOP's reduced to , but still strong enough before the 1900s shuffles (which turn them "the Democrats" again for TR's Presidency) to field recognizable names like Garfield, John Sherman, Harrison, Thomas Brackeet Reed, Jr., and Nelson Aldrich (on the NUP ticket), Charles Fairbanks, Elihu Root, Leonard Wood
That I’ve been absent so long I could barely remember my password, so it’s immensely flattering to be asked for my opinion!😊@Tiro what do you think?
I imagine Blackford is a more notable parliamentarian than might appear at first glance (after all, why would the New York gang know enough about him to be so critical during his re-election in 1916?), I expect he certainly got a very nice committee chairmanship during the Coalition Congress of 1919-1921. Blackford's own familiarity with Marxism (which we know from his conversations with Flora is there, just significantly downplayed), is part of the reason why even the cooperativist centre of the party is at least nominally Marxist by the middle of the century. Blackford almost certainly originates as a populist though.That I’ve been absent so long I could barely remember my password, so it’s immensely flattering to be asked for my opinion!😊
Thank You very kindly for that compliment, Hexcron: as for the article itself, my knowledge of the Socialist Movement in any country is very minimal (and my instinctive mistrust of any politician that repeatedly uses the word ‘dialectic’ is considerable) but you certainly makes this sound like a fascinating period in US political history.
It’s also interesting to wonder what Hosea Blackford’s role in and perspective on Dakota becoming a stronghold of the early US Socialist Party might be - one assumes that it is partly this significance that helps him to become the first Socialist VP and the second Socialist President.